Slashdot Mirror
A Closer Look at Star Wars on Film and Off
mclove writes "Revenge of the Sith comes out on DVD today, and there's an interesting article on Slate dissecting the now-complete trilogy as the avant-garde, intellectual sort of film that Lucas keeps saying it is."` Relatedly inkslinger77 writes "ILM model maker, Brian Gernand, speaks about what it is like to work with George Lucas and why he thinks Star Wars attracts such a huge following, particularly among the IT community. He also gives some information about the technology that is used behind the scenes. "
Don't count on it...
The toad can't burp - and for some reason can't fart either, so it swells up and eventually explodes. --Anonymous Coward
...It's a cash machine.
As always, any sufficiently insightful deconstruction is indistinguishable from satire.
Cubicle light saber duel, anyone?
I love Slate and I read it every day, but this article is not convincing for me. His main point is that George Lucas got all meta about plot; the Force represents Plot; the Emperor represents the author's attempt to control the plot, and Jar Jar represents the inventive whimsy of the characters. Sounds to me like "Moby Dick is actually the Republic of Ireland". Sorry.
Never attribute to post-modernism that which can adequately be explained by stupidity!
The Force is the ultimate plot device, and it's such an obvious plot device that even the characters themselves realize that their actions are being controlled by this plot device, so it becomes a post-modern plot device.
Cue fanfare and applause.
Jar-Jar and the prequels "needed" to happen so that Toys'R'Us could squeeze that bit more Star Wars junk on the shelves.
This article is a load of rubbish, unless of course if it is satire, in which case it is great.
That's a big "if" ladies and gentlemen.
I apologize beforehand for the rant but...
What do you people have against Star Wars? Most people here think Star Wars (IV, V, VI) is cool because all the older geeks they live up to thought it was cool. Now everyone that watched the newer episodes (or even heard about them) and their grandmothers think they suck. Well you know what? If they did truly suck, people wouldn't go like crazy to watch them (don't forget, Episode I is 5th on the All Time Box Office for the USA) all.
Can anyone give me a precise reason why they think Star Wars I, II or III were horrible movies? Was it Jar Jar? If yes, how would you do it to make it suck less, stick to the original story and ensure IV, V and VI don't have to change? Remember, you still need a gullible character that can be trusted by the Jedis, loyal, possible elected to be a representative in the Senate at a future time and easily manipulated in the future. Any character you make like that (even making Harrison Ford play the character, since so many love him) would still make you hate him. It is the exact purpose of the character. And it is also the ingredient the movie needs to evolve.
The movie as a whole is truly amazing, and if people cannot tolerate a movie that provides them with the foundation of their "greatest movie of all time", then maybe they should reconsider their opinions. It is indeed a work of art. People should watch "The power of myth" with Joseph Campbell and George Lucas (filmed in '88) to understand what George Lucas was actually trying to do with Star Wars. If you got it wrong the first time, don't blame the director/author. Blame someone else.
And to save you some trouble... Slate's analysis is close to what George Lucas was trying to do in the first place.
I was talking to a friend about Episode III. He pointed out, his words, "It was the best of Star Wars, it was the worst of Star Wars." You'd have an incredibly great moment followed immediately by something soul-crushingly stupid. The POV shot of Vader's mask coming down over his face; Vader's first breaths. Chilling.
Followed by Vader whining about where Padme is, and then, of course... "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
Lucas is great at molding basic story material, but he can't write dialogue or characters to save his life. He should have stuck to producing, which is what he's really good at.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
He's not impressing people with no interest in the arts. He's sure not fooling anyone who even casually takes this seriously. I guess is supposed to be a joke on both Star Wars fans and students of literature, but where is the Monty python foot next to the submission?
I'm no movie aficionado, but I think it has just a leeeetle to do with the wooden acting, bad directing, contrived (Forced?) plot and the non-stop (to paraphrase a cousin post) grabbing of one's balls and screaming of, "Look! Special Effects!"
It looks like the slashdot audience is getting really hung up on the whole, "Is the Slate piece a satire or not?" thing. The thing is, as I commented before, "'satire' and 'non-satire' is a binary distinction that post-modernism transgresses proactively."
What I mean, is that the author both is and isn't kidding. Also, I'm both kidding and not kidding when I say "transgresses binary distinctions." Here's a helpful analogy: Let's imagine you're writing a horror story. You write, "Start breathing harder. OK. Let your pupils dilate. Shake a little. Cower. Think about other scary stuff. Be worried that something might kill you soon!" How effective would this be as a horror story? The answer is not at damn all. The best way to make someone frightened isn't to say, "be frightened," it's to say a bunch of other stuff that inspires fear in them.
Similarly, the content of the Slate piece isn't the point. The author almost certainly doesn't care whether Star War is "post-modern" or "avant garde." Instead, the author likes challenging his brain, and wants you to enjoy challenging your brain. So, he's given himself a task: come up with a post-modern meta-framing of Star Wars. Now, we the audience are supposed to allow our brains to quiver with joy as we connect the dots and think about whether and how the Force as a meta-explanation for plot coincidences in Star Wars can be called post-modern. The author is almost certainly serious in that this explanation is a valid one for Star Wars. The author is almost certainly joking in suggesting that Star Wars is High Art. The author is both serious and not, and that's the point.
If the author had written, "let your brain light up with activity. Think about connections. Enjoy the tingling of neurons firing," it wouldn't be effective. Instead, we're supposed to accept what the piece gives us without trying to shoe horn it into the category of "joke" or "not a joke." We're supposed to be enjoying how the piece is and isn't a joke, not trying to make it fit what we think about the quality of the Star Wars movies.
Anyone care to enlighten me?
You are too enraptured by the Star Wars mythos. To the Dark Side of the Fandom headed you are!
May the Maths Be with you!
Is it possible that the Rebel ship at the beginning of Episode IV was at Tatooine because they were going to contact Obi-Wan? Leia seems to know who he is and that he lives there. Why else would it have come out of hyperspace there instead of Alderaan?
The droids meeting up with Luke isn't neccessarily a coincidence either. R2D2's memory WASN'T WIPED!!! This is the big revelation at the end of Episode III that changes the way Episode IV is viewed. R2D2 knew he needed to get to Obi-Wan, knew he would live near Luke & knew where Luke lived - why else would he be so insistent on going in that direction?
>> Can anyone give me a precise reason why they think Star Wars I, II or III were horrible movies?
Because they sucked. How much more precise can I be? You want me to list scene/chapter/verse? Why isn't the perception of overall suckiness enough for me to say that it was a horrible experience to watch the new "trilogy"?
When The Matrix sequels came out, I had a hard time arguing with at least one fan-boy at the office who kept telling me that if I didn't like them it was most likely because I just "didn't get them". As if there was some secret deeper meaning behind them of which only an enlighted selected few were aware. As if I am not smart enough or rational enough to be able to form a valid opinion on something by sheer perception and experience.
I liked the LotR movies a lot, but I accept the fact that there are people who found them slow, boring, and too distant from the original work to qualify as Tolkienesque. I can certainly see why, but more importantly, I respect their opinion.
Now respect mine (and all those others who have a negative view of SW movies): I believe that Episodes I, II, and III were horrible. I believe that Episode II was (slightly) better than the first, and that Episode III was still even better than the previous two, but in my eyes that still means that Lucas finally reached mere mediocrity from the depth of incompetency and horridness. On the other side of the token, I believe that the original Star Wars (what you would call Episode IV) was the best of the series, with a very good follow up in The Empire Strikes Back (that's Episode V for you kiddies). I don't really care much for Return Of The Jedi (Episode VI if you're not following).
-dZ.
Carol vs. Ghost